Club-Ski CERN ch snowboard tutor: Equipement basics

Tutor – Equipement basics

Choice of board

A beginner is greeted from the start with a wide choice of boards, freestyle, freeride or alpine… but… which one to choose?

We generally recommend a freeride board for beginners because these boards are well suited for a wide variety of conditions. When choosing your board try to choose one that is more flexible than stiff, a flexible board is easier to turn than a stiff one. An alpine board for instance is normally quite stiff.

Boots: Hard or Soft?

It is possible to learn in either hard or soft boots and we have not observed any difference in learning curves across the two types. However it is probably best to start with soft boots, as not only they are much more versatile but more comfortable (reason in it's own right to quit skiing and get into snowboarding 😉 ). Your old or cheap ski boots may be used initially, but once basic progress has been made the lack of lateral flex on the ski boots become prohibitive to learning more advanced manoeuvres. In any case Snowboard boots used from the start aid the correct stance and weight distribution, but this may be a more expensive option (especially if you have growing children!)